Atheists and the Will to Believe

I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded upon fables and mythologies.
Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Dr Woods

It has been well said that one should not be so open minded that one's brains fall out. This is a good admonition to those who, for example, pusillanimously declare themselves agnostics when the only rational alternative to belief in the existence of supernatural beings can be atheism.

This is because the basis of belief in the existence and gods and goddesses is no different from that for belief in pixies, namely legend and credulity; and the grounds for entertaining the thought that something might exist (footprints, fur snagged on fences, grunting in the night, actually seeing the creature in question bounding up a hillside) require much better and more consistent supports than the pre-scientific fictions invented by our ancestors to explain what they did not understand.

People forget how strong the belief in the Little People was until quite recently - they were a feature of things well into Victorian times and even later. They were blamed for much, such as missing pins and curdled milk, the lights seen on the marshes,and various aches and twinges suffered by old ladies. As reason diffused its happy light over the Western hemisphere, courtesy of the growth of literacy in those same times, belief in pixies and their ilk faded.

But superstition has strong talons; a lady of Cork, literate and generally sensible, was once asked whether she believed in leprechauns, and replied, "I do not, but they are there anyway," thus beautifully capturing the spirit of agnosticism in all its faint-hearted fence-sitting tendentiousness; for it is premised on the fact that since no one has proved that X does not exist, X might exist, as if this in any way followed, and as if responsible and disciplined intellectual endeavor does not show the fallacy of thinking that, for example, the fact that no one has proved the non-existence of Tolkein's Hobbits means that they therefore might exist in some Middle Earth after all.

Still: it remains important to be open-minded, though with a readiness to subject what is offered for our intellectual assent to stringent evaluation by the light of probability and experience. These two latter are indispensable servants of thought. They explain the difference between the assiduity with which some seek the Loch Ness Monster, while no such expense of cameras and microphones, boats and planes, bearded researchers and photojournalists has ever clustered around the possibility that a woodland grove might be the scene of moonlit pixie parties. For the idea of large marine beasts has a plausibility endowed by whales and manatees, while the idea of antique such beasts has its plausibility from sharks and coelacanths, both of them survivors from hideous depths of zoological time.

Oddly, it is the credulous who are the least open-minded. They accept dogma, and dogma closes - even indeed punishes - enquiry thereafter.
Voltaire says that he honors the man who seeks truth, but despises the man who claims to have found it.
The saying touches the essence of the difference exceedingly well, and should be the motto of anyone who aspires to intellectual honesty.

An atheist who prays is not an atheist.
Atheists don't believe in gods, or anything supernatural, and think that praying is very silly because there's nobody up there to take your call.

I am an atheist and have atheist friends; we giggle at the idiocy of prayer and belief in superstitious mumbo jumbo.

An atheist who prays makes as much sense as a vegetarian who eats meat. The behavior cancels out the label.

Dr. Chopra - you said something here that pertains to many atheists with 'spiritual' leanings. While the pure materialists among us disparage any other view, there are indeed other views.

The problem with hard-core materialists is that they know what they know, and are very certain that new (scientific) knowledge will only confirm what they already know to be true. For them, there really is no other way.

While none of us will live long enough to know much of anything for sure, all of us would like to feel free to investigate any avenue of 'spiritual' interest that we may have, whether or not that meets with the standards of the uber-certainty of our residents materialists - who continue to believe in the 'fact' of materialism despite certain doubts at the quantum end of the science spectrum. So be it.........

They have escaped from the God myth, and are now free to live each and every moment free of the mythology of religion. Is there a mythology of scientific materialism? This could be the new frontier - in a couple of decades or so. Work is already being done in this area....

PS. I posted a few things on the Colson thread....a guy that has absolutely nothing to say to anybody.

what is the difference between fundamentalist atheists telling others what they can or cannot think, and fundamentalist religious who define other people for them?

none that i can see-

where's the respect? do athesits really believe that the majority of the people on the planet are mindless superstitious idiots, and by comparison- they are above us all intellectually?

and that the apex of human endeavor is to be "smart"?
if so, where are their great movements? their superior society?

what about kindness, compassion, empathy,selflessness, and service to humanity?

so far, all i see being offered are condescending insults.
is this a superior contribution to the world at large?

It is a true mark of a huckster that he camouflages any possible meaning in a flurry of words that have no meaning:

"The rational mind cannot go beyond words and concepts, but consciousness can expand within itself without limits. Whether accidentally or by intent, I hope at least a handful of believing atheists have set out on the journey that begins with the will to believe and ends beyond images, even beyond thought itself."

The first poster pointed out why the whole article is BS. The quoted sentences suggest that "BS" is being treated as worse than it really is, i.e. as Chopraism.

How about if we wrote:
"The irrational mind can go beyond words and concepts, but consciousness cannot expand without itself without limits. Whether by mistake or happenstance, I hope at least a handful of believing faithful have set out on the journey that begins with the courage to disbelieve and ends beyond concepts of God and even beyond God itself?"

See, it's still BS and just the flip side of what Chops has said.

What utter rubbish. Gobbledygook, but it sounds mystical and sure makes money.

I happened on this thread because I saw a blurb about Colson's contribution. Funny, how Jailhouse Rock Chuck got about 300 responses and Mystical Chops got 10. Well, I've made it 11.

Unbelievable that the Post publishes such claptrap.

It is a true mark of a huckster that he camouflages any possible meaning in a flurry of words that have no meaning:

"The rational mind cannot go beyond words and concepts, but consciousness can expand within itself without limits. Whether accidentally or by intent, I hope at least a handful of believing atheists have set out on the journey that begins with the will to believe and ends beyond images, even beyond thought itself."

The first poster pointed out why the whole article is BS. The quoted sentences suggest that "BS" is being treated as worse than it really is, i.e. as Chopraism.

How about if we wrote:
"The irrational mind can go beyond words and concepts, but consciousness cannot expand without itself without limits. Whether by mistake or happenstance, I hope at least a handful of believing faithful have set out on the journey that begins with the courage to disbelieve and ends beyond concepts of God and even beyond God itself?"

See, it's still BS and just the flip side of what Chops has said.

What utter rubbish. Gobbledygook, but it sounds mystical and sure makes money.

I happened on this thread because I saw a blurb about Colson's contribution. Funny, how Jailhouse Rock Chuck got about 300 responses and Mystical Chops got 10. Well, I've made it 11.

Unbelievable that the Post publishes such claptrap.

Deepak, my man, you've got a serious language problem. No-one who believes in a god or gods really has the right to call themselves an "atheist". It's simply excluded by the definition of the word. Which makes your article complete BS.

If you believe in gods, then you aren't an atheist, no matter what you identify as. This isn't terribly complicated.

Mr. Chopra, you seem to be a person who selects only those scientific findings that bolster your beliefs. You comment on genetic discoveries regarding belief while ignoring the broad literature on the obvious survival benefits of religion. This allows you to cast belief as something far more mysterious and magical than it actually is.

Confirmation bias, my friend, confirmation bias.

Oh, stop with all the mystical mumbo-jumbo.

In the beginning, there were people, newly possessed of sufficient cerebral cortex to wonder. And they looked up and saw the Sun - they saw its light, they felt its heat, they experienced its comings and goings. It was a fire that burned and was never extinguished. Whoa! Magic! And when it was gone from the sky, the world was a dark, scary place, where bad creatures roamed.

Then sometimes the sky would darken in the day, and the "face" of the Sun would be hidden. Winds would howl. Lightning would flash - sometimes killing someone - and thunder would rumble. The Sun must be angry. What's to be done?

Cue the first "priests." It didn't take long for the original con-artists to figure out that they could make a pretty good living by claiming to speak to and for the Sun. They were the only ones, they asserted, who could possibly interpret what the Sun god wanted. Pay them for their intervention and sacrifice, and they'll put in a good word - the storms and the earthquakes will stop. And so they did. They have a habit of doing that.

If the bad things returned, or the crops failed, well, clearly the priest hadn't been treated well enough, or the sacrifice was unworthy...or maybe you'd entertained a bit of doubt.

Eventually it became more elaborate - stick with the Sun god and you will have certain godly privileges yourself - like eternal life. Just make sure those sacrifices are great - bring me half of your crops, and never, never question the great Sun god.

When you "die", you'll go UP - to the beautiful blue sky to be with the Sun god. But if you fail to *believe*, you'll go DOWN, and we've seen what's down there...sometimes it boils out of the ground when volcanoes erupt.

Come on, people, it's the twenty-first century!

Dear Dr Chopra

In this essay you are fully in your element and are the Dr Chopra, who is my hero.

Thank you.

Soja John Thaikattil
Sydney, Australia

We are not the same people we used to be. We were taught in many churches to not question. Accept on faith alone.

We question now. Many "Holy" Christian preachers and priests have proven to be anti-Holy. We are discouraged.

People attend church for strange reasons and seems very few are brought a sense of peace by their beliefs in God.

Whats next? More and more people are afraid to say it but they dont believe in God. Spirituality will take over and leave dogmatic,failed religions in the past.

Nice essay. Dr. Chopra's insights are in my view always worthy of contemplation.

I'd add that it's a big step for any human to begin to move from the need for a personal deity, to a realization that a vast and serene impersonal principle is actually at the root of things.

There's a lot of cultural and religious programming to overcome, after all. And a true sense of a deeper reality only comes with actual experiences of an all sufficient quietude underlying ordinary thought and experience.

All the noble virtues are impersonal too: truth, justice, law, courage, morality, patience, prudence, temperance, compassion and so forth.

And amazingly such a principle is actually closer and more readily available than a supreme personality located somewhere on high; the foundation of things is everywhere, in every form, being or atom, as well as the space in between.

As we grow and evolve, this deeper understanding begins to unfold within us. With clarity and smoothness of mind comes insight, and the insufficiency of old concepts and idols simply and gradually fade away. We realize the absolutely rightness of the universe as it is, because it is lawful, just, infinitely diverse yet one in essence; perfecting itself through its own integrity.

The human mind and ego have to be transcended or transformed before such understanding dawns as a conscious experience, but the wise in every age offer guidance for those receptive.

We're left in the end with an inconceivable essence supporting everything; known not ultimately by intellect but felt and experienced non-the-less.

Be(lie)f = fiction = story = entertainment = pretend = make believe = experience story

Atheists may value a more dramatic story experience; these characters are alone in a wilderness they must strive to overcome with only their own hands and mind.

Which character is most outstanding in their achievements? The one getting help from God or the one going it alone?

It is all about accolades…. when we return home from the play, the infinite play.

Humans are greater than God. What challenge did an omnipotent and omniscient being ever have to overcome? Has God ever faced a life or death choice? Unless of course he were to become a human being, then God might earn some merit.

Of course he would need to forget who he really was... to be human. Of course it might be fun to wake up and realize that you were God and still be in the game, but he wouldn't want to be sure, perhaps some doubt or distractions to keep the charade and the entertainment and challenge going.

"Those who know do not speak;
Those who speak do not know." (Zen Buddhism)

No thoughts, no reflection, no analysis,
No cultivation, no intention;
Let it settle itself.

Reality comes from within, not from without.
Without is the so-called "God"
If man did not have the God, he will create one.

There is no Ego, no enduring entity which is the constant subject of our changing experiences. For the ego exists in an abstract sense alone, being an abstration from memory, somewhat like the illusionary circle of the fire made by whirling torch. The God is an absract illusion/delusion.

Very nice essay...Dr Chopra!! Thank you.